Eclipse of Reason
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The Argument of Eclipse of Reason. The Silent Scream Eclipse of Reason.
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Bernard Nathanson Charlton Heston. Martino Fine Books March 6, Language: Start reading Eclipse of Reason on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle?
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Please try again later. While under an earlier conception of reason it was possible to assess the rationality of ends as well as means, it now seems impossible to employ reason unless the goal is set beforehand. Under the new form of reason it becomes impossible to discuss the reasonableness of a goal unless it is subservient to another goal.
The ultimate aims of human activity are set not by reason but by arbitrary whim. From the subjective approach, such a discussion is possible only if both aims serve a third and higher one, that is, if they are means, not ends. But how do we know men are best judges of their own interests? To answer this question we must rely on "some sort of reason underlying not only means but ends. Horkheimer points out that the principle of majority rule was, historically, based on metaphysical arguments about the dignity of each human individual. If reasoning about ends is discarded, democracy can be justified only by the fact that it exists.
And by this standard tyranny can be justified just as readily. It was to create new sacred documents, and persuade the world to change its beliefs. The great religious and philosophical leaders of the past did not praise humility and brotherly love because they were accepted, because they were realistic, or because they were norms enforced by conformity. Thinking itself has been reduced to an industrial process.
Reason is no longer an autonomous force, but merely an instrument to be used by the blind forces of nature or power. The idea that acquiescence of reason to power is the norm in the statistical sense is very easily confused with the idea that it is the norm in the moral sense. The principle of majority rule, interpreted as a demand that thinking conform to the statistical norm, has become "a new god, not in the sense in which the heralds of the great revolutions conceived it, namely, as a power of resistance to existing injustice, but as a power of resistance to anything that does not conform.
Unlike postmodernists who acquiesce in the loss of objective reasoning about ends, or even celebrate it, Horkheimer laments its demise. He recognizes that a new emasculated, neutralized, impotent reason unable to confront power is what rules society. But he doesn't concede that it must rule. The postmodernist version of critical theory, on the other hand, by celebrating the new emasculated, neutralized, impotent form of reason rather than resisting it, seems to have inherited the description of the battle from Horkheimer only to take the opposite side. The form of reason Horkheimer praises he calls "objective.
He doesn't seem to object to the individual exercising reason independently, but to the fact that individuals almost always reason in terms of the incentives offered by existing power structures. Subjective reason, in the sense used in this book, treats the ends chosen by polls and markets as part of the natural environment. It treats the incentives put in place to enforce these ends as a natural fact, no more amenable to rational critique than the orbit of the planets.
Subjective reason always optimizes the subject's personal interests in light of these incentives.
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It never criticizes them. As a result of this settlement, religion has given up the claim that the forms of life it advocates are reasonable. And philosophy has given up the claim that reason is "an organ for perceiving the true nature of reality and determining the guiding principles of our lives. Pragmatism assumes at the outset that truth in itself is not a value, but only an instrument that leads to "something that is alien or at least different from truth. Horkheimer is uncertain if, after this reversal of values, pragmatism can even justly claim to be part of the philosophical tradition.
Again we find instrumental reason uncritically supposing existing social structures are always rational.
Eclipse of Reason is a book by Max Horkheimer, in which the author discusses how the Nazis were able to project their agenda as "reasonable", but also. Eclipse of Reason is a anti-abortion documentary video directed, filmed, and narrated by Bernard Nathanson, with an introduction by Charlton Heston.
When we listen to a symphony today, we imagine we appreciate it on the basis of an "autonomous aesthetic instinct. Our appreciation for art relies on "old forms of life smoldering under the surface of modern civilization. The means we employ in engineering are exquisitely rational, based on the very undemocratic idea that the truths of mathematics and physics are to be decided on the basis of objective reasoning, irrespective of whether or not the majority assents to them.
The ends of our work, however, are determined by the opinions of the majority as determined by polls and markets, irrespective of whether or not they are rational. Engineers in Central Europe in the s rationally planned how hydrogen cyanide gas would be produced and stored in canisters.
They believed they were fulfilling their duty, being rational about means while leaving the choice of ends to their rulers. Engineers today rationally plan how coal will be extracted from mines and converted to electricity and carbon dioxide. We too believe we are fulfilling our duty by obeying. But we might ask, does a mind capable of devising exquisitely complex means have a duty to ask whether the ends for which they will be used are humane and rational? Or is obedience to majority and marketplace sufficient?
Eclipse of Reason
Horkheimer suggests that moral and intellectual progress is now blocked by a "debilitation of the will" caused by its "premature diversion into endless activities under the pressure of fear. As a conscientious engineer I have always put aside my own will and looked to the marketplace as the sole guide to what activities are worthwhile. My intellectual energy has been dissipated in solving thousands of tiny problems, so none remained to confront the larger question of whether the ends of my work were rationally justified.
The brutal way our society treats dissenters has always hung over my head, and, conveniently for my rulers, produced the fear they needed to get me to put reasoning about ends aside, and focus entirely on means to solve their problems.
Furthermore, they highlight the ways in which positivist philosophies of material and social production rob the culture at large of its ability to effectively self-critique. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands. Write a customer review. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. If reasoning about ends is discarded, democracy can be justified only by the fact that it exists.
Straight up Frankfurt-school-critique goodness.